Author: Nancy, PANews

Last weekend (March 15-16), led by Mubarak, the MEME coin attack on the BNB Chain revived the on-chain sentiment, and the long-dormant P-warriors rushed to the Middle East time zone, closely following the rhythm to participate in this carnival. In this MEME hype, Binance founder CZ and He Yi even transformed into the driving force of the trend, personally joining in to catch the trend and create memes, and various MEME hype materials pushed this craze to new heights.

MGX investment heat boosts, CZ joins to ignite the Middle East MEME narrative

Recently, Binance announced that it had received a staggering $2 billion investment from the UAE sovereign fund MGX, a heavyweight news that not only sparked widespread attention within and outside the industry, but also became the strongest hype narrative on the BNB Chain.

On March 13, the day Binance officially announced the MGX investment, the official released a tweet with an image of a "rich editor" wearing a Middle Eastern-style headscarf, which triggered interactions from CZ and He Yi.

When reposting the tweet, CZ added the caption "Mubarak", which is an Arabic word meaning "blessed" or "bestowed with grace". This culturally-tinged Middle Eastern term was quickly captured by the market, and a large number of MEME coins named Mubarak began to appear in the community. But among the many MEME tokens, CZ later reposted a tweet from a "0x5c...46f6" community member, which was like a "designation", quickly forming a market consensus on the leader, and the attention to Mubarak also skyrocketed.

The heat did not subside, CZ then dropped a depth charge in the Binance Square - he posted that he was "going to see a friend this weekend" and attached a funny MEME picture with the Mubarak theme, which quickly spread in the community.

On March 15, Binance Alpha quickly listed Mubarak, and CZ also spent 1 BNB each to buy 9,161 TST and 20,155 mubarak the next day, and posted on the Binance Square, seemingly responding that "just testing something on the weekend." This series of operations pushed the Mubarak hype to a climax. On March 16, CZ also tweeted that he was "considering changing his new avatar and soliciting interesting suggestions from the community", and mentioned that his current avatar has been used for 11 years. Combined with his recent frequent mentions of Mubarak, this statement undoubtedly added more imagination space for the MEME coin, and some even speculated that the new avatar might be related to the rich image of Mubarak. In addition, Mubarak also won the support of a $4.4 million permanent liquidity pool provided by Binance with the community's support.

Compared to the on-chain PVP battle triggered by CZ's announcement of his pet dog "Broccoli" name, Mubarak's operation can be described as smooth as flowing water. From the cultural label of "Mashallah" to the satire of the Middle Eastern version of CZ, to the listing on Binance Alpha and CZ personally buying in, each interaction step has helped Mubarak achieve viral spread. It can be said that the popularity of Mubarak is the combination of celebrity effect, cultural narrative and MEME attributes, accurately grasping the heat window period of Binance's layout in the Middle East.

GMGN data shows that Mubarak's market cap once reached nearly $150 million. However, according to Ai Yi's analysis, Mubarak currently has the problem of insufficient liquidity depth, which may make it difficult for large holders to sell their holdings without significantly impacting the price. Mubarak's current market cap is about $134 million, with a 24-hour trading volume of $88.1 million, but the liquidity pool depth is only $4.48 million, accounting for only 5% of the daily trading volume. Taking the top-ranked address as an example, the 13 million tokens held by this address are worth about $1.618 million, and if they try to sell at market price, they will face a slippage loss of more than $500,000, as the current BNB depth in the liquidity pool cannot support such a large-scale transaction.

In addition to Mubarak, there are also several other Middle East narrative-themed MEME coins that have been hyped by the market. For example, a few days ago, CZ reposted an old tweet "Inshallah" and shared a photo with the chairman of the MGX board Tahnoon, captioned "Mashallah", which temporarily boosted the popularity of the same-named MEME coin, but later fell sharply after the tweet was unpinned.

Interactive marketing ignites community sentiment, but MEME hype space is limited

The Mubarak craze has ignited the sentiment on the BNB Chain, and Binance's moves have also become the material for market hype, with its interactive marketing stirring up wave after wave of community enthusiasm.

For example, on March 13, He Yi left a comment on a tweet about Binance exchange's organizational chart, saying "Who's that person in the top right? I've never seen him before?" This immediately sparked community enthusiasm. Many members quickly followed up on the meme, photoshopping their own avatars into the organizational chart, sparking a wave of spoofing. The official Binance X account also joined in, not only replacing the figure in the chart with "BNB Holder", but also self-deprecatingly changing it to "Palu" - "Palu" is a name derived from the hit game "Fantasy Palu", which the Chinese community often uses to refer to "bullish workers". This self-mocking brand marketing and community interaction spread like a virus in the crypto circle, not only creating the "Web3 Palu" label, but also spawning the MEME coin Palu of the same name, further driving the market heat to continue rising.

Another example is the popular "answer me" and "look in my eyes" video memes on TikTok these days, which the crypto community has also played with new tricks, creating videos with CZ and He Yi as the protagonists, and these funny videos not only spread like wildfire in the community, but also got reposts and likes from CZ, He Yi and the official Binance account, further amplifying the influence. The MEME coin $Answer derived from this has naturally become another market hot spot.

However, overall, the hype space for most MEME coins on the BNB Chain currently shows certain limitations. According to GMGN data, the MEME coin with the highest trading volume on the BNB Chain in the past 24 hours was Mubarak, close to $100 million, while the projects with trading volumes reaching the tens of millions of dollars level were only 3, and the rest were mostly hovering around millions or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, showing the concentration of market heat and the lack of long-tail effects.

To attract more users, the Binance Wallet has also launched a six-month zero-fee trading event. On March 17, Binance announced that it will launch a zero-fee trading event starting from 4:00 pm on March 17, 2025 until 4:00 pm on September 17, 2025, applicable to all trading pairs within the Binance Wallet. During the event, all transactions completed through the exchange and cross-chain bridge functions in the Binance Wallet or the quick purchase function of Binance Alpha will be exempt from trading fees, but users still need to pay the network Gas fees. Transactions made through third-party dApps are not within the scope of the event.

In general, in this BNB Chain ecosystem building, the "two-way pursuit" between Binance and the community has become a highlight of its marketing strategy, not only bringing users closer, but also injecting more vitality and topicality into the ecosystem through the light and humorous way of MEME.